Abstract:

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework based on research in the learning sciences that guides the development of flexible learning environments that can accommodate individual learning differences . This can include:
(i) multiple means of representation to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge;
(ii) multiple means of expression to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know, and
(iii) multiple means of engagement to tap into learners’ interests, challenge them appropriately, and motivate them to learn.

In the educational field, but this could be also apply to a more general context in our current society, written information of different types may have to be dealt with everything, such as text coursebooks, news from schools, emails, or academic feedback, among others. Not being able to access and understand such information may hamper the proper social inclusion of students, not only those who may suffer from some cognitive disorders or physical disabilities, but for any student who in some specific context may not be familiar with the language, specific vocabulary, topic, etc. or has some reading comprehension difficulties.

To remove obstacles that may negatively affect reading comprehension is a complex task. This is due to several factors, such as, the length of the text; the vocabulary used; the ambiguity of terms; the text size; the way information is presented, as well as to the specific needs each student may have.

The integration of Human Language Technologies (HLT) methods in the development of online applications in charge of processing and transforming text would lead to applications that can automatically enhance the way the information is displayed, supporting students (if we focus on the educational domain) or any other type of user to obtain the information according to their preferences, level of knowledge and cognitive needs, in such a way that it is more accessible and easier to understand for them.

Therefore, this paper presents the development of ADAPT@, an innovative multilingual and multimodal web-based online application that uses HLT to allow to personalize the visualization of information in line with user preferences and needs. ADAPT@ offers a variety of visualization outputs in the form of text, image, word cloud and outline, and it also allows to summarize the input text, being able to work for three languages: Spanish, Catalan and English.

The results obtained after the evaluation of the proposed online application through a user survey indicate that ADAPT@ was perceived as an effective and useful tool, which can facilitate the comprehension of texts, and therefore with high potential to be applied to a wide range of scenarios, including the education.

A prototype of the application is publicly available at: https://adapta.gplsi.es/.

Keywords:

Human Language Technologies, Online applications, Reading comprehension, Personalized visualization, Inclusiveness.